Mid-Autumn Festival redux

Today, Sunday, Sept.27 is the mid-autumn festival holiday. It must go by the lunar calendar as I notice last year it was on Sept.8. It is a holiday, so there is no school - but then this is Sunday so there isn't any school anyways. They don't reschedule holidays to fit on a Monday and make 3-day weekends. Heck, they don't even have 2 day weekends!

I was looking back on last year's blog to see if I described the holiday. I did mention that families get together and sit outside and eat mooncakes and look up at the moon. No moon here today - it's cloudy. And mooncakes are sort of an acquired taste - they are a very dry and flaky pastry. The first bite is not very enticing, but it gets better. Why mooncakes? The legend has it that a long time ago there were 10 suns in the sky. A very talented archer shot down 9 of them, leaving only the one. The gods thanked him and gave him some medicine that would make him immortal, but he would live on the moon. He didn't want to take the medicine because then he would leave his wife behind and he loved her very much. Once, when he was away, some men came to steal the medicine because they wanted immortality. The wife, not wanting them to get it, saw the only way to prevent them from taking it was to drink it herself. So she became immortal and went up to the moon.  The husband, then, would peer up at the moon to try to see his wife. And then the whole mooncake thing started. It is interesting to ask the Chinese about the legend because they all have a bit of a different take on it. I think it has morphed throughout the ages but I just gave you a down and dirty version...

This upcoming week at school is a short one - just Monday through Wednesday. Then the national holiday on Oct.1 - 7. What is this holiday about? It celebrates Oct.1, 1949 when the Communist party won over China. The losers went to Taiwan where they reside today. I don't think many of us foreigners are going anywhere distant over this time. I checked into some airfares and they were expensive, plus large crowds would be anticipated. So I took a pass...

We had our 3rd school performance in 3 weeks on Friday. The first was celebrating the 20th anniversary of the school (I had a short video clip of it in last week's blog), the second was the opening ceremony for the school (not the same as the anniversary), and the third was 2 days ago to celebrate the start of the soccer/basketball season. It seems crazy to have a school-wide assembly on sports seeing as how the school doesn't really emphasize sports at all, but President Xi has declared he wants China to become competitive in soccer and for the schools to do more to bring it up - so there you have it! Look out soccer world! All of these performances has created a crazy schedule of rehearsals and it has been near impossible to have any type of continuity in your classes. It was not unusual to be conducting a class and suddenly hear a whistle blowing outside your classroom signalling the students to go out for practice. Even David, our principal, said it was crazy even by Chinese standards. Well, after this October holiday, things should settle down...

I hear President Xi of China has been visiting Obama. I told Sky he was given a 21-gun salute and he said why would they do that?  Guns are illegal in China and he didn't understand the symbolism behind the gesture at all... I don't know if anything about cyberattacks will come out of this meeting, but maybe some headway on pollution in China? If they want to know how to do it, just ask Volkswagen. That is exactly one of the problems in China - you can't trust any of their statistics because people will massage the numbers so they won't look so bad or get in trouble with their superiors. And everyone knows that is the way it is. Very difficult to change...

I will be one happy camper when this holiday is over. They have constant musical performances in the park outside my apartment window and it goes on all day until 10 at night. It'll drive you nuts.

And so it goes...

Sometimes a Great Notion...

I don't know where I got it, but I had this strange idea that the 2nd year in China would be easier. I'd know the ropes a little better, know some people, and get around easier. (Notice speaking the language is not something I mention...) Well, it's been ok, but not the smooth ride I was hoping for...

Our foreign math department here is supposed to be made up of 3 math teachers. For whatever reason, they have had a hell of a time trying to recruit the 3rd one - and they look no closer to getting that person now then when the school year started 2 weeks ago. So we've been operating with a skeleton crew of 2 - and the only way to do that feasibly is to cut down on the number of courses we're offering/teaching. So we're not offering the Chinese students the amount of foreign instruction that we're supposed to, but there's little we can do until a 3rd teacher is hired. Then the other half of my department suddenly declared that there was an unequal division of labor in our department and he was going to quit immediately if it was not rectified. As we were both teaching the same relative number of classes and had the same number of preps, I was a bit flabbergasted. It put the principal in a tight spot - either appease him, or lose another math teacher and be down to one. So I got another class added to my load and he got one subtracted. Not really what I would call equal but at least he's still here and happier (so he says) and I'm not fending for myself... You can have leverage here that wouldn't work at all back in the USA. They'd have told him to pack up his stuff and git - then use subs until a permanent replacement was found. Well, no subs here and a replacement is probably at least 2 months (if that) out. So the first 2 weeks of school have contained a bit more excitement than I'd like.

This year marks the 20th Anniversary of Gaoxin High School in Xi'an. To celebrate, the students put on performances last Saturday that they'd been practicing all week. All sorts of dignitaries present and it was a huge deal. It made the first week of school difficult because the students were being excused all the time to practice. It's weird how the priorities of the school suddenly changed (the bosses feel obligated to put on a big show). I will insert a video production put together by a company that had drones flying all over the place. It's about 5 minutes long - hope it works:

Due to the performances (which we were obligated to attend) being on Saturday, that meant we started off the school year with 7 straight days of school (we started on Sunday). The school actually had meetings scheduled on the day after, Sunday, as well, but only made them mandatory for the Chinese teachers and not the foreign staff.

So the second week of school has been normal (Mon - Fri) for us. The October National holiday is coming up on Oct.1 - 7 and we are all looking forward to being able to do some relaxing during that time. Not really thinking of doing much traveling during that time as I learned last year you're competing with a billion other Chinese people for the tourist activities.

If you are able to watch the video, you may notice the blue skies! That is something that has been different this year - much cleaner air! I have been able to see the surrounding mountains many days and the pollution index has not been in the heavily polluted range. I don't know what's causing the difference this year, but let's hope it is better in the winter as well (winter tends to be more polluted). I noticed that during the World Games in Beijing they managed to bring the pollution levels down significantly - Beijing is usually one of the worst cities. It has been going up since the games have ended, however.

The internet filters in China seem to be more troublesome right now. We have had many times when it has been difficult to get a good connection. Or you finally get a good connection and then get dropped after a few minutes - very frustrating!! But I have managed to sneak around a little bit and get on Netflix once in a while. I became addicted to Longmire and have now watched all 4 seasons. Haven't decided what will be next... I'm reading a book called the 6th Extinction (or something like that - you never know what you're reading on a Kindle) that is very interesting but paints a very bleak picture of the future here on Earth. It looks like the rats may still be around though so not all is lost!

Well, I'm cutting loose on this one right now. The video is still uploading so I don't know if it will make the cut or not. I'd just put the link to it on our school website  but I don't know that you'd be able to view it in the US...

Here we go again!

Well the summer literally flew by, and the first day of school here in China on Year 2 of the Dipont contract is right around the corner.

I arrived back in China on August 20 after fulfilling a very busy and productive summer. On the morning of August 21 I went out apartment hunting. I was able to find a good apartment - and it was only the 2nd one I looked at! I really wanted to stay in my old apartment, but the landlord sold it out from under me during the summer, so I had to move out as soon as possible (this was after several assurances from him that he was not going to sell the apartment and I could stay there as long as I wanted). I am now on the 19th floor of a 20 story apartment building (previously I was on the 11th),
and the complex is not quite as close as before, but definitely walkable (having said that, I have been riding my electric scooter in every day so far). It has wood floors, a bit unusual around here (and probably packed with formaldehyde), but has a much more homey feel. In typical fashion here, the bathroom and kitchen were incredibly dirty and I have spent a lot of time making them decent. So I moved into the apartment on the 22nd (took about 4 or 5 trips - accumulated some junk!), and then promptly had to fly out to Wuxi for the annual induction ceremony for Dipont (the company I work for). The workshops and meetings lasted for 2 days, but we spent 3 nights there. The hotel we stayed in was incredible - very large and literally a maze to get around. Rooms were huge and luxurious. The downside - it was in the middle of nowhere and to get into town involved a long taxi ride. Wuxi is not on my top ten list, so I just stayed in the hotel...
So we got back to Xi'an on the 26th and we were free until the 30th to get settled and sorted out. On the 31st, we started our 3 teacher prep days (Aug.31, Sept.1, Sept.2). So here I find myself on the 2nd no  better prepared to start teaching than when I arrived! I've been helping the new teachers figure everything out (part of my new duties), get them computers (still not successful with this one) and generally get my head around everything. The internet has been very spotty with us so far and has led to a lot of frustration. Rumor has it that the Chinese government was cracking down on internet filters during the Beijing World Games that were going on - it is over now so maybe things will settle down...
It has been tough to get started on the prep because they haven't finalized our classes, teaching schedule, and many of our Chinese cohorts that we work with are not around yet due to various activities. And so it goes...
It is a late start this year due to a new national Chinese holiday - September 3 is the 70th celebration of the end of the Anti-Japanese war. And they are making a 3 day holiday out of it by extending it to the 4th and 5th as well. So that means the first day of school is Sept. 6. What? That's a Sunday? Who keeps track of these things?? We also have a meeting on the afternoon of the 5th (part of the "holiday") which is the first time that ALL of the teachers of our school (foreign and Chinese) will be there. So the afternoon before the first day of school is our first opportunity to talk with our Chinese colleagues about how we're going to divide up the teaching duties. Some things just don't seem to change....
Well, I had to get my feet wet and get started on the blog for this year. I don't know yet of any specific plans for us ex-pats for this holiday. I'll update on the new staff next time - we have 7 new teachers this year and it looks like a good crew - from all over the world.
The weather has been hot and muggy every day. In the 90's. The a/c in my new apartment works great in my bedroom, not so good in the living area. Looking forward to the cool down!!
The Chinese want to know, who is this Trump guy??